North Wind: 1, Jolly Roger:0

Seasickness.

Or should that be 'lake sickness'?

North wind: 1 Jolly Roger: 0

The lake gods were against me on Saturday. The boat was finally back from the Race to Mackinac and the 100-miler, and I even brought new rail meat crew with me (very cute guy from work).

However, Zenda was against me. And our goddess-like foredeck crew. And the owners' visiting-from-out-of-town daughter. Because north winds (here) equal BIG WAVES (aka 'chop') which is a godawful somewhat unpleasant sailing experience. So Glinda, good witch of the north, you are officially on notice that you are NOT WELCOME here anymore!

We left the harbor on an absolutely stunningly gorgeous Chicago summer day (and lots of Lollapalooza music) and headed out. As soon as we left the harbor breakwater, the CHOP HIT. Ouch. Since we were motoring, the boat would 'fall' down the face of a wave to a horrific THUUDDDDDDDD! And the crash would cause all these lovely-sounding reverberations through the boat. Nice.

We're about 50% of the way out to to race circle when two of the owners and myself start discussing just HOW MUCH we really want to do this. It's not a 'boat of the year' (BOY) race for us (translation - it doesn't really count), the wind is blowing 20 knots (right at the edge of "white knuckling it" weather), slated to build in intensity, and we have 3 very new and fairly useless crew out of 9.

After a lot of teeth gritting (and myself and foredeck goddess turning even more verdant shades of seasick) we decide to just bag it, head in, and eat.

Which was great, except for the "jolly roger sitting at the rail preparing to heave" for an hour.

Not a lot of eating for me (what it takes to succeed at amy diet... sigh..) But the "newly hot" crew from work LOVED it. Which could be bad. I'm highly susceptible to "hot guy" distraction while sailing!